Aggro, Combo, Control & Hybrid Archtypes

[Shad0w]

If you have not had a chance to read it Jeff Cunningham did an break down back in 2007 of Aggro, Combo, and Control and the hybrid forms of each archetype. Even though the main focus is about MtG it can be applied to many aspects of MW.

This will be the basis of this thread.

Aggro
Currently we have 3 aggro styles that players are looking to build.
1 Creature swarm / overrun
2 Monster build - One - Two well buffed creatures and your mage
3 All in mage centric

Control
We have talked about a few options for control builds.
1 Mana Drain
2 Zone Control - example of this would be the archer, wall build

Combo
Currently this is the least popular of all the builds. I know a few combos that can be included in builds but I have yet to come up if a combo worth building around.

Combo / Control
1 DoT (Damage over Time) build - this use constant effect like Ghoul Rot, Malcoda, Idol of Pestilence, Chains of Agony, and Mage Bane to slowly eat away the health of the opposing army. While you have mass regen effects to keep your stuff alive.  

What I want the goal of this thread to be is the sharing of information and Ideas to help develop new builds playtest them and see how viable they are on a tourney level. If this thread gets too long each archetype will get its own thread. If you come up with something new I want to see how it holds up to the current know builds

[Gewar]

I am not sure if I understood this thread purpose, but I have one decent idea/combo I use for my Aggro Beastmaster.
It is valid for lone mage or one-two big creatures:
Fellella, Pixie Familiar + Harmonise  on her in my first turn + lots of different enchantments in spellbook.
- with chaneling 2, she is able to cast one enchantment every turn, giving you oportunity to do other stuff. You still have to have mana to reveal those enchantments, but you save 2 mana and action on every single of them.
- if you cast Decoy with Fellella, you may transfer 2 mana from her to your mage.
- you have to cast enchantment every turn, because you will not be able to use stacked mana on Pixie.
- with so enchant heavy deck you may have less Equipments and Incantations in your spellbook.
- you have to be careful with Purge Magic - you should have Nullify on your enchant-heavy creature or spread enchantments on more than one targets.
- protect Fellella - if she dies, you will lose key element of your deck - you should have Enchanter Ring as your B plan

[Shad0w]

I like the idea Lets see how it hold up to the known spell books types people are playing. If you need an idea of how to make one of the know build just ask.

Has anybody in your group tried the Beastmaster Dog swarm build?

2-3 red claw because they may die, max Timberwolf, max Bitterwood Fox, max Call of the wild, max Rouse, Tree of Life to heal. One thing I do is use Teleport to move the opposing mage close to the pack at end of a round. The a force hold or other way so they cant move. Next round cast Call x2 and attack. At this point even foxes can put out 6D+

[Shad0w]

I am not sure if I understood this thread purpose, but I have one decent idea/combo I use for my Aggro Beastmaster.
It is valid for lone mage or one-two big creatures:
Fellella, Pixie Familiar + Harmonise  on her in my first turn + lots of different enchantments in spellbook.
- with chaneling 2, she is able to cast one enchantment every turn, giving you oportunity to do other stuff. You still have to have mana to reveal those enchantments, but you save 2 mana and action on every single of them.
- if you cast Decoy with Fellella, you may transfer 2 mana from her to your mage.
- you have to cast enchantment every turn, because you will not be able to use stacked mana on Pixie.
- with so enchant heavy deck you may have less Equipments and Incantations in your spellbook.
- you have to be careful with Purge Magic - you should have Nullify on your enchant-heavy creature or spread enchantments on more than one targets.
- protect Fellella - if she dies, you will lose key element of your deck - you should have Enchanter Ring as your B plan

What would be your threat creatures? the Bear, or maybe the mage?

[Gewar]

I like the idea Lets see how it hold up to the known spell books types people are playing. I you need an idea of hoe to make one of the know build just ask.

Has anybody in your group tried the Beastmaster Dog swarm build?

My group currently has one (mine) copy of game and I've played only a few games and I haven't try dog swarm yet.
But my Beastmaster spellbook has some foxes/wolwes/Redclaw + Lair, some totems and Call of the Wild - so I think it is Dog Swarm build - but it is an addition to my Fellella-enchantment play. Dog Swarm does not cost too much points, so it is nice add-on to have an element of suprice (you know - I do not usually start with dog swarm, but I can do it sometimes and my enemy will not exept it).

[Gewar]

I am not sure if I understood this thread purpose, but I have one decent idea/combo I use for my Aggro Beastmaster.
It is valid for lone mage or one-two big creatures:
Fellella, Pixie Familiar + Harmonise  on her in my first turn + lots of different enchantments in spellbook.
- with chaneling 2, she is able to cast one enchantment every turn, giving you oportunity to do other stuff. You still have to have mana to reveal those enchantments, but you save 2 mana and action on every single of them.
- if you cast Decoy with Fellella, you may transfer 2 mana from her to your mage.
- you have to cast enchantment every turn, because you will not be able to use stacked mana on Pixie.
- with so enchant heavy deck you may have less Equipments and Incantations in your spellbook.
- you have to be careful with Purge Magic - you should have Nullify on your enchant-heavy creature or spread enchantments on more than one targets.
- protect Fellella - if she dies, you will lose key element of your deck - you should have Enchanter Ring as your B plan

What would me your threat creatures? the Bear, or maybe the mage?

I have some - in one play it was mage, in other it is Bear or Panther (better, if an enemy has many guards, but I have Mongoose Agility too). I have some middle sized creatures too - wolves and lizards and with many enchantments they are comparable to Grizzly. Skyhunter with Bear Strengh and Bull Endurance is deadly to every single flyier - even Lord of Fire.

[Gewar]

2-3 red claw because they may die, max Timberwolf, max Bitterwood Fox, max Call of the wild, max Rouse, Tree of Life to heal. One thing I do is use Teleport to move the opposing mage close to the pack at end of a round. The a force hold or other way so they cant move. Next round cast Call x2 and attack. At this point even foxes can put out 6D+

Sorry for trippleposting, but that's what you get, when two guys write in the same moment

I have only one copy of the game + Core Spell Tome and I do not use proxies, so I have only one Redclaw. Also, my spellbook isn't focused around dog swarm, so I don' have max foxes and wolves, but I have some of them (3+3 I gues). I have Tree of Life and maybe 3 Call of the Wild (I am thinking about replaceing it with Mage Wand - so I can have even less Incantations in my enchantment build) I have only one Rouse of the Beast, but maybe I'll get second copy. I have Tenglave and Force Push and Wall of Thorns to keep my enemy where I want him to be.
But, as I said, I havn't have a chance to test my dog pack part of spellbook yet and can't tell for sure if is it working. Also, my group isn't very experienced yet, so even if it would work well, I can't tell for sure if my idea is good or my oponents are weak

[Shad0w]

2-3 red claw because they may die, max Timberwolf, max Bitterwood Fox, max Call of the wild, max Rouse, Tree of Life to heal. One thing I do is use Teleport to move the opposing mage close to the pack at end of a round. The a force hold or other way so they cant move. Next round cast Call x2 and attack. At this point even foxes can put out 6D+

Sorry for trippleposting, but that's what you get, when two guys write in the same moment

I have only one copy of the game + Core Spell Tome and I do not use proxies, so I have only one Redclaw. Also, my spellbook isn't focused around dog swarm, so I don' have max foxes and wolves, but I have some of them (3+3 I gues). I have Tree of Life and maybe 3 Call of the Wild (I am thinking about replaceing it with Mage Wand - so I can have even less Incantations in my enchantment build) I have only one Rouse of the Beast, but maybe I'll get second copy. I have Tenglave and Force Push and Wall of Thorns to keep my enemy where I want him to be.
But, as I said, I havn't have a chance to test my dog pack part of spellbook yet and can't tell for sure if is it working. Also, my group isn't very experienced yet, so even if it would work well, I can't tell for sure if my idea is good or my oponents are weak

The only reason I would recommend proxies is to see how it plays out before you investing in more copies. The reason proxies are good for testing is it lets you work on the optimum build and see how your current build could be improved. Another thing is once you know how your build runs and what the key cards are look for cards that could be replaced. BTW I would fit the dog build into a Aggro-Combo classification. Because it uses cards that improve each other like Red Claw and Call.  It may not sound like a lot of damage but you could be rolling 30D+ on turn 6-7 if played correctly.

As a good rule of thumb always build and test against the most complete build you can. Just because your group can't make it does not mean that nobody can make and play that build.

Try the DoT build out and let me know what you think.

[Gewar]

The only reason I would recommend proxies is to see how it plays out before you investing in more copies. The reason proxies are good for testing is it lets you work on the optimum build and see how your current build could be improved. Another thing is once you know how your build runs and what the key cards are look for cards that could be replaced. BTW I would fit the dog build into a Aggro-Combo classification. Because it uses carsd that improve each other like Red Claw and Call.  It may not sound like a lot of damage but you could be rolling 30D+ on turn 6-7 if played correctly.

As a good rule of thumb always build and test against the most complete build you can. Just because your group can't make it does not mean that nobody can make and play that build.

Try the DoT build out and let me know what you think.

I would probably never buy more copies of base set - I am waiting for expansions - but I like an idea it is not collectable card game, and buying singles/more of the same would ruin my experience.

About dog pack - I was thinking about making that deck specificly, but I decided not to - it is too obvius and I find not fun to do obvious things with this game.

Damage over Time would be my third build to try - sounds challenging and interesting enough I want to try "Cage of Death" build with Wizard first (lock enemy with strong creature surrounded by walls + Raven to cast some support spells inside the cage)

[Shad0w]

Well play the builds against each other and tell us how the matches play out. Play one build against most of the know builds to see how well it holds up. If you want a hard match for the DoT build try it vs swarm.

Solo equip build Warlock can smoke any Mage right now. We have yet to see the Warlock lose a game. I played a game rolling 9 dice on melee with Vampirism. Fire support is crazy good also. Its pretty easy to get the Warlock up to 6 armor which helps.

This was form another thread but I felt the need to post it here.

[fas723]

I don't have any great ideas of combos, but one thing I know is that out the three categories personally I like the combo style the best.

I would love to see more combo driven cards. Cards that maybe isn't that good in it self, but get really great once combined with something. I wrote in another thread several weeks ago that would like to see creature that acted like evolves of each other. I.e. a tiny creature (maybe quick cast) that would have 2 in health and 1 attack die for 3 mana. Not good at all, but you could later cast a evolve at it to grow it into a beast of some kind. This would require your opponent to pay attention to your small creatures before then becomes larger and harder to kill. I'm thinking this could also be done in several steps, so that you could evlove it even higher: tiny golem ->  golem -> Fire golem or tiny golem -> golem -> Stone golem.

Basically, more combo cards (not not just obvius ones) are very welcome!

[piousflea]

I don't think the M:TG concept of "Combo" is completely applicable to MW. MTG combos generally rely on spending several rounds "setting up" the combo (either by having the correct cards in hand, or other prerequisites), then playing the combo to win in a single action. MW doesn't have anything comparable (yet). While Redclaw and Gate to Hell are certainly designed around having big swarms of Dogs or Demons, there's no true "combo" where having the right prerequisites turns one card into an insta-win. After all, in a game where you can draw any card whenever you want, that would be horrifically game-breaking.

I would almost suggest that instead of Aggro, Control, Combo it should be Aggro, Control, Terrain:

Aggro: Deals direct damage to enemy mage + creatures.
Creature Swarm
Big Creature Build
Equipment Build
DoT Build

Control: Directly prevents or counters enemy actions.
Mana Drain
Action Advantage (Familiar, Hold, Stone, Banish, Nullify, Jinx, etc.)
Heal-based Defense

Terrain: Inflicts or prevents damage by using terrain.
Archer/Wall based Defense
Static Defense build (Temple of Light, Poison Cloud, and traps)
Kill-Zone Offense (ie, teleporting your foe into Hydras and traps)

[Shad0w]

I don't think the M:TG concept of "Combo" is completely applicable to MW. MTG combos generally rely on spending several rounds "setting up" the combo (either by having the correct cards in hand, or other prerequisites), then playing the combo to win in a single action. MW doesn't have anything comparable (yet). While Redclaw and Gate to Hell are certainly designed around having big swarms of Dogs or Demons, there's no true "combo" where having the right prerequisites turns one card into an insta-win. After all, in a game where you can draw any card whenever you want, that would be horrifically game-breaking.

I would almost suggest that instead of Aggro, Control, Combo it should be Aggro, Control, Terrain:

Aggro: Deals direct damage to enemy mage + creatures.
Creature Swarm
Big Creature Build
Equipment Build
DoT Build

Control: Directly prevents or counters enemy actions.
Mana Drain
Action Advantage (Familiar, Hold, Stone, Banish, Nullify, Jinx, etc.)
Heal-based Defense

Terrain: Inflicts or prevents damage by using terrain.
Archer/Wall based Defense
Static Defense build (Temple of Light, Poison Cloud, and traps)
Kill-Zone Offense (ie, teleporting your foe into Hydras and traps)

I would agree with you to some extents but it possible to build combos that do not auto win. I have a deck that can not win or lose and nobody ever dies. If it goes off nobody in the game will die or lose in any way, but I cant kill because the total power in the deck is 0.

In fact if you read Jeff article.

Combo is a strategy that utilizes the interaction of two or more cards (a "combination") at the same time or in sequence, resulting in a powerful effect. This strategy can also refer to using a single powerful spell to instantly win the game while the rest of the deck is designed to ensure its success. Many decks have smaller, combo-like interactions between their cards, which is better described as synergy. A good combo should be fast (achievable early enough in the game to matter), consistent (regularly achievable), and powerful (so the effect translates into victory).

Both parts are true it can be a game winning effects or just a powerful interaction between 2 or more cards.

Control-Combo is a strategy that combines heavy disruption elements (control) with the ability to unleash an extremely powerful internal synergy (i.e., a combo). Requiring specific cards, but having lots of strategic crossover between them, this is an uncommon decktype in shallower formats (Block and Standard), but such decks are regularly seen in Extended, Legacy, and Vintage.

I would put to DoT style build into a combo control classification because it use interactions from more then 1 card to constantly put out damage each turn. You use things like force hold and walls to slow down the attack and hold off the other mage. I also include full set of negates, rev mag, jinx, rev attack, dissolve, and 2 explodes in my build. These are just some of the disruption elements. In the next set we are testing a few more cards that I will be including.

Terrain: Inflicts or prevents damage by using terrain.
Archer/Wall based Defense
Static Defense build (Temple of Light, Poison Cloud, and traps)
Kill-Zone Offense (ie, teleporting your foe into Hydras and traps)

I could break these done into the already determined archetypes.

Archer/Wall based Defense - could be fit into aggro control or pure control deepening on your build

Static Defense build - could fall into control or combo

Kill-Zone Offense -  this would most fall into the aggro or control line depending on how you use the AOEs, Whats is nice about this is it is a very modal build and can change the play style as needed. I would say this probably one of the best example of mid range Aggro Control you can find.

[paradox22]

Has anybody in your group tried the Beastmaster Dog swarm build?
 
2-3 red claw because they may die, max Timberwolf, max Bitterwood Fox, max Call of the wild, max Rouse, Tree of Life to heal. One thing I do is use Teleport to move the opposing mage close to the pack at end of a round. The a force hold or other way so they cant move. Next round cast Call x2 and attack. At this point even foxes can put out 6D+

You could potentially have little foxes doing 8 dice of damage if you added in marked for death on the enemy, and used Rajan's Fury for charge +1!   :woohoo:

Would you use any enchantments on the pack?  Bear strength on redclaw? Regeneration?  ...Or just use them as is?

...Also, one flaw with this build are powerfull zone attacks or chain lighting. Those poor foxes will go up in flames pretty easily.

[Shad0w]

500th post again :woohoo:

Has anybody in your group tried the Beastmaster Dog swarm build?
 
2-3 red claw because they may die, max Timberwolf, max Bitterwood Fox, max Call of the wild, max Rouse, Tree of Life to heal. One thing I do is use Teleport to move the opposing mage close to the pack at end of a round. Then a Force Hold or other way so they cant move. Next round cast Call x2 and attack. At this point even foxes can put out 6D+

You could potentially have little foxes doing 8 dice of damage if you added in marked for death on the enemy, and used Rajan's Fury for charge +1!   :woohoo:

Would you use any enchantments on the pack?  Bear strength on redclaw? Regeneration?  ...Or just use them as is?

...Also, one flaw with this build are powerfull zone attacks or chain lighting. Those poor foxes will go up in flames pretty easily.

Correct you have to plan for AOE spells. I have said before 1-2 well played AOEs could set you back 3+ turns and for swam builds that can be game breaking. I do use enchants Bear Strength, Rhino Hide, and the protective stuff like Reverse Magic, Reverse Attack, Block and Nullify.

This is why this thread is all about meta playtesting to find what holds up and what needs reworked. The dog build is very fast but has a glaring flaw when it comes to AOE spells and CL.